Who do you trust?

Apparently we have a president-elect who likes or even prefers communicating via Twitter to whatever audience frequents and gets its sometimes-fake news from social media. For better or worse (I think worse), they all seem content to bypass our mainstream media. Not that the MSM have earned my confidence when it comes to reporting on Trump. They gave him a free ride for months, not taking him seriously, not doing their due diligence with proper investigative and expository reporting. I think they bear a large degree of responsibility for his election.

I don’t do social media unless you count this blog. And I haven’t done MSM since Election Day. (I confess I cheat just enough to keep up with who’s being appointed to what position.) Even if the media straighten up and rediscover their lost professionalism, I’m not interested in hearing any more about Trump and his cronies right now. I just don’t have the stomach for it.

Meantime, won’t somebody please take that damn phone away from him? Those ill-considered remarks he tosses out there are going to go to the wrong person one of these days and anger some foreign leader or faction.

Wow. Sounds like I’m not the only one who has stopped watching the news. I get tidbits from listening to progressive talk radio while working, but that’s about all I pay attention to. If the talk radio host plays a recording of some recent Trump babble, I must it until that recording is over. I cannot stand to hear his voice, let alone even look at him with that smug face. He is pres—-elect and whining that he didn’t get the popular vote. That’s so messed up.

Not that I believe in such things, but it’s said that “The Beast,” when he arises, will be proclaimed “Savior” by those who think of themselves as the downtrodden righteous – like some kind of cosmic test for stupidity. As crazy as it sounds, I swear that’s what it feels like every time I tune in to check out the latest “breaking news” on Trump’s activities!

God, I miss George Carlin! I just watched a video over on Open Culture explaining why Socrates hated democracies – it was because a democracy without a well educated body of voters would result in exactly the kind of outcome we just got!

We don’t get EVERY A merican show here; we get a fair sprinkling of English/British and American programs, but there’s not enough hours in the days or weeks to get the lot; (thank christ for that). Yet I wonder we get that much stuff repeated over and over …. and then we have to make room for our own Australian content which is pretty large naturally enough. quantity not necessary quality!

Many members of the public can be pretty stupid too. In the past few weeks, Trump University has settled lawsuits worth 25 million and Trump Foundation has admitted to the IRS it lied and cheated. Did this cause a big stir in the press, I think not. Meanwhile Trump throws out the big lie he saved jobs in Indiana, which is not true. Also he tweets about flag burning and the press goes mad. What a deceitful dodger he is. Grow up America.

Too many people don’t look beyond their social media for news. And we are learning, only now, that during the election, a lot of “news sources” on social media were and are fake. The level of education in this country has sunk to frightening lows. Combine that with anger, frustration, joblessness, and bigotry, throw in a narcississtic, unbalanced rabble-rouser, and you get President-elect Trump. Assuming the nation survives the next four years, I think the people who elected Trump will still be poorly educated, angry, frustrated, jobless, and bigoted — and still dependent on social media for their news.

I believe one of the biggest reasons voters in the rust belt went for Obama then Trump has to do with hubris. Because Obama is basically an academic, he failed to inform voters about the things his administration accomplished, whereas Trump has had no difficulty doing this.

In other words, academics don’t understand how to market themselves. Even if they do understand, they look down on the process.

A classic example….how many people understand that budget cuts at State pushed through by Republicans were behind the failure at Benghazi. And what did Dems do? They went on and on about a video.

And how many people understand that the unemployment rate has been improving steadily since the great recession?

And he media, ignoring fake news for a moment has not done its job either.

Hillary understood how to do this, but she wasn’t president. And,Trump is a master snake oil salesman. Honesty has little chance against oft repeated lies. Even educated people can be gullible and/or mislead, like Faust.

Sadly, I know several extremely well educated people who fell for Trump lies.

I may be retired from publishing, but I still think it’s important to check a story from several different reputable sources to ensure that it’s probably true. And to try to get several different perspectives and interpretations of events. Too many schools are failing to teach critical thinking and too many people today don’t exercise it.

I pretty much stayed away from news and even blogs. Just too much drama. The hysteria just seems to continue – booooring. News media (who has lost all credibility) and the whole mess of celebrities/ broad generalities/politicians may find people have found they can live without them competely.
You are right: what passes for the educational system has gotten us to this point.

Our campaigns are waaaay too long. I can’t imagine the public staying interested the whole time, and it’s obvious the media haven’t a clue how to fill all that space and time. If there’s anything meaningful in their coverage, it gets lost in all the repetition, idle speculation, chasing of squirrels, etc. Then and now I just watch the headlines to keep up with what’s happening and only occasionally delve into the details. There’s nothing much I can do about what’s happening in Washington; local and regional events are what affect me most directly.

One blogger I read has proposed that Democrats should now take to Twitter in defense of the election outcome. I can’t bring myself to do it. My impression is that it is a landscape of trolls and brain-farts, but then I haven’t actually tried it either. I tried Facebook for a couple of months, but gave it up after encountering “friends” I had never heard of before.

I quit Facebook almost immediately (years ago) when I learned what it was doing with our personal information. Since then the case against it has just continued to grow. And my understanding of Twitter is similar to yours. Trolls and brain-farts (good description!). My posts here do automatically post (in part) to Twitter and Facebook, but only as a means of attracting/notifying a few readers. It’s appalling to me that anyone would look to social media for serious news. Yet I fear that reflects the intellectual level of about half our population. If that makes me sound arrogant … so be it.